Burnham to lobby for return of councillors on local housing association boards

Andy Burnham plans to lobby the government to bring local authority representation to housing association boards.

Speaking at an event organised by the charity Shelter on the fringe of the Labour conference in Liverpool, the mayor of Greater Manchester said he wanted to see a return of the “golden share” concept.

The golden share was introduced to give local authorities influence over registered providers to which they transferred their housing stock in the 2000s, when many of them were encouraged to do so in order to receive Decent Homes funding.

However, the measure was scrapped by the Conservative government in 2017.

Burnham told attendees: “One of the things I will be asking the government to do, perhaps in the English devolution bill, is to restore that golden share concept where there has to be councillor representation on local housing associations”.

“If you don’t have that accountability you have got a problem,” he added, referencing the disaster at Rochdale Boroughwide Council, which led to the death of toddler Awaab Ishak.

Burnham said he would “go even further” and push “to get housing stock back under significant local control, if not fully run by councils”.

Angela Rayner, the housing secretary made a brief appearance on the panel, but kept relatively tight-lipped on her department’s plans for social housing, particularly as it related to spending.

“I’m not going to pre-empt the spending review, despite the temptation,” she said. 

“All I would say is, if you look at what the prime minister says about the opportunities and the first steps, every single one of them is impacted by the housing crisis.”

However she did promise action to “fix the situation in right to buy”, explaining that there was “no point in me having the biggest wave of council homes the one day, and then not being able to replace them as they go out of the door the next”.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, set out her charity’s key asks for government, which included having a target for social housing building, “so that we know what we are expecting and we are measuring whether we are getting it or not”.

She also urged a change in the design of the Affordable Homes Programme in the spending review.

“It needs to prioritise social rent. Affordable is an absolutely Orwellian term - we need to prioritise social rent settlement and we need secure funding for 10 years,” she said.

She also said the government needed to encourage local authorities to test out new compulsory purchase rules and replace the right to buy with a mortgage with a mortgage deposit scheme.

“I know that there is a will to do this in government,” she said.